Auto Suggestions are available once you type at least 3 letters. Use up arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+up arrow) and down arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+down arrow) to review and enter to select.

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King takes us to a remote cottage in Cornwall in this gripping tale of intrigue, terrorism, and explosive passions that begins with a visit to a recluse code-named . . .

Once studied by British intelligence for his excruciating sensitivity to the world’s turmoil, Bennett Grey has withdrawn from the world–until an American Bureau of Investigation agent comes to assess Grey’s potential as a weapon in a new kind of warfare.

Agent Harris Stuyvesant needs Grey’s help to enter a realm where the rich and the radical exist side by side–a heady mix of power, celebrity, and sexuality that conceals the free world’s deadliest enemy. Soon Stuyvesant finds himself dangerously seduced by one woman and–even more dangerously–falling in love with another. As he sifts through secrets divulged and kept, he uncovers the target of a horrifying conspiracy, and wonders if he can trust anyone, even his touchstone.

About the Author

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, the Stuyvesant & Grey novels Touchstone and The Bones of Paris, and the acclaimed A Darker Place, Folly, and Keeping Watch. She lives in Northern California.

Read an Excerpt

Touchstone

Bantam

Eight days after stepping off the Spirit of New Orleans from New York, Harris Stuyvesant nearly killed a man.

The fact of the near-homicide did not surprise him; that it had taken him eight days to get there, considering the circumstances, was downright astonishing.

Fortunately, his arm drew back from full force at the last instant, so he didn't actually smash the guy's face in. But as he stood over the prostrate figure, watching the woozy eyelids flicker back towards consciousness, the tingle of frustration in his right arm told him what a near thing it had been. He'd been running on rage for so long, driven by fury and failure and the scars on Tim's skull and the vivid memory of bright new blood on a sparkling glass carpet followed by flat black and the sound of the funeral dirges that-well, the guy had got off lucky, that was all.

He couldn't even claim it was self defense. The cops were right there-constables, he should call them, this being England-and they'd already been moving to intercept the red-faced Miners' Union demonstrator who was hammering one meaty forefinger against Stuyvesant's chest to make a point when Stuyvesant's arm came up all on its own and just laid the man out on the paving stones.

A uniformed constable cut Stuyvesant away from the miner'sfriends as neatly as a sheepdog with a flock and suggested in no uncertain terms that now would be a good time for him to go about his business, sir. Stuyvesant looked into the clean-shaven English face beneath the helmet and felt his fist tighten, but he caught hold of himself before things got out of control.

He nodded to the cop, glanced at the knot of demonstrators forming around the fallen warrior, and bent to pick up the envelope he'd dropped in the scuffle. He turned on his heels and within sixty seconds and two corners found silence, as abrupt and unexpected as the sudden appearance of the Union workers had been five minutes earlier.

He put his back against the dirty London bricks, closed his eyes, and drew in, then let out, one prolonged breath. After a minute, he raised his hand to study the damage: a fresh slice across the already-scarred knuckle, bleeding freely. With his left hand he fished out his handkerchief and wrapped the hand, looking around until he spotted a promising doorway down the street. Inside was a saloon bar. "Whisky," he told the man behind the bar. "Double."

When the glass hit the bar, he dribbled half of it onto the cut-teeth were dirty things-and tossed the rest down his throat. He started to order a repeat, then remembered, and looked at his wrist-watch with an oath.

Late already.

Oh, what the hell did it matter? He'd spent the last week chewing the ears of one office-worker after another; what made him think this one would be any different?

But that was just an excuse to stay here and drink.

Stuyvesant slapped some coins on the bar and went out onto the street. It was raining, again. He settled his hat, pulled up his collar, and hurried away.

It had proven a piss-poor time to come to London and talk to men behind desks. He'd known before he left New York that there was a General Strike scheduled at the end of the month, in sympathy for the coal miners. However, this was England, not the States, and he'd figured there would be a lot of big talk followed by a disgruntled, probably last-minute settlement. Instead, the working classes were rumbling, and their talk had gone past coal mining into a confrontation with the ruling class. The polite, Olde Worlde tea-party dispute he'd envisioned, cake-on-a-plate compared to some of the rib-cracking, skull-smashing strikes Stuyvesant had been in, didn't look as if it was going to turn out the way he'd thought, either-not if men like those demonstrators had their way in the matter.

And God, the distraction it had caused in this town! One after another, the desk-bound men he'd come to see had listened to his questions, then given him the same response: Does this have anything to do with the Strike? Then please, I'm busy, there's the door.

Yeah, that miner had been damned lucky, considering.

Maybe when this next one showed him the door-Carstairs was his name, Aldous Carstairs, what kind of pansy handle was that?-maybe that would be where his temper broke. Maybe the bureaucrat would get what the demonstrator hadn't.

He couldn't help feeling he had reached the bottom of the barrel when it came to a straightforward investigation. Certainly, he held out little hope that Carstairs would do more than go through motions-he'd heard of the man more or less by accident the previous afternoon, sitting across the desk from a Scotland Yard official he'd met in New York years before. Now an exhausted and harassed-looking official in a day-old shirt who, even before the inevitable tea tray arrived, was sorry he'd let Stuyvesant in.

"No, I've already talked to that man," Stuyvesant told him, in answer to a suggested contact. "Yeah, him, too. And him. That idiot? He was one of the first I saw, and frankly, the sooner he retires, the better off your country will be. No, that guy's in France, and his secretary's useless. Now, him I haven't talked to, where-Scotland? Jesus, do I have to go to Scotland to ask about a man who lives in London?"

"I should give you to Carstairs," the Yard official muttered, then immediately regretted the slip and hurried on. "What about-"

"Been there. Who's this Carstairs fellow?" Stuyvesant's instincts had come alert, aware of some overtone in the way the man said the name, but the fellow shook his head.

"Just a name, honestly, he doesn't have anything to do with what you need. I think you should go talk to . . ." Stuyvesant was soon out the door, holding nothing more than three names on a slip of paper.

Outside the office door, a pair of men in bowlers sat waiting. Stuyvesant nodded to them, collected his hat and overcoat, and walked down the hallway and around the corner. There he stopped, staring unseeing at the scrap of paper.

Give you to Carstairs. Not, Give you Carstairs, which would have suggested the resolution of a grudge, but a phrase with a touch of fear in the background: I should feed you to Carstairs.Stuyvesant counted to thirty, then doubled back to the Yard man's office. The two men were nowhere in sight when he walked in, and the secretary was just settling back at his desk.

"Sorry," the American said, "I neglected to get a phone number. Just let me pop in-"

"I'm sorry, sir, he has another appointment."

"Oh, I'll just be-wait, maybe I could get it from you instead? The name's Carstairs."

The secretary looked blank for a moment and Stuyvesant resigned himself to a dud, but then the man's eyebrows shot up. "Aldous Carstairs?"

"That's the man. You have a phone number for him?"

The secretary's glance at the closed door was eloquent testimony of the unusual nature of the request, but reluctantly, he went to a book in the bottom drawer of his desk, opened it to a page at the back, and copied out a number.

"Thanks," Stuyvesant told him, and that was how he found himself running ten minutes late on a pouring wet Friday afternoon, a bloody handkerchief around one hand and a sodden scrap of paper in the other, searching for an address that he finally located in an utterly anonymous building a stone's throw from Big Ben.

Chapter Two

The doorman took one look at the figure that lurched into his tidy foyer and moved to return the straying lunatic to the streets. Stuyvesant pushed down the impulse to deck another Brit and summoned his most charming, lop-sided smile, assuring the man that he did, in fact, have an appointment with Mr. Carstairs, although he'd had a little accident, if he could just phone . . . ?

Without turning his back on the disheveled American, the doorman went to his desk to pick up his telephone. He spoke, listened, grunted, and hung up.

"If you'll just wait a minute."

It was less time than that when a weedy specimen with freckles and twitchy hands came through the connecting door and stopped dead. He looked at Stuyvesant, and at the doorman (who gave him a What-did-I-say? shrug), then stood back, holding the door.

"Mr. Carstairs?" Stuyvesant asked.

"His secretary," the man replied. "The Major is expecting you."

He led the sodden visitor through a hallway and up a flight of stairs to a dark, highly polished wooden door. Inside, he took Stuyvesant's hat and coat, hung them over the radiator, and went to the desk, where he pushed a button and said to the air, "Mr. Stuyvesant." He got the pronunciation right, Sty rather than the usual Stooey.

The response five seconds later was a click at the inner door; the secretary came back around the desk and opened it. Stuyvesant stepped into the dim office.

The man behind the desk was in his early forties, slightly older than Harris Stuyvesant, and smooth: dark, oiled hair, the sheen of manicured fingernails, a perfectly knotted silk tie, and nary a wrinkle on his spotless shirt. A visitor's gaze might have slid right off him had they not caught on his striking eyes and unlikely mouth.

The eyes were an unrelieved black, with irises so dark they looked like vastly dilated pupils. They reminded Stuyvesant of a wealthy Parisian courtesan he'd known once who attributed her success to belladonna, used to simulate wide-eyed fascination in the gaze she turned upon her clientele. Personally, her eyes had made Stuyvesant uneasy, because they'd robbed him of that subtle and incontrovertible flare of true interest. This man's eyes were the same; they looked like the doorway to an unlit and windowless room, a room from which anyone at all might be looking out.

The man's mouth, on the other hand, was almost obscenely generous, full and red and moist looking. His lips might have made one think of passion, but somehow, a person could not imagine this man lost in a kiss.

When he put down his pen and rose at Stuyvesant's entrance, the American saw the third element to the man's visage: a twisting, long-healed scar down the left side of his face, hairline to collar.

Stuyvesant walked forward, forcing his gaze away from the scar and onto those ungiving eyes. The scar was nothing, after all, compared to some of the damage he'd seen that week, seven and a half years after the war to end wars-although it looked more like the work of a knife than a bayonet. The man held out his hand; in response, Stuyvesant lifted the once-white rag.

"You probably don't want to shake this," he said. "I had a little altercation on the way here with one of your miners. I'll try not to bleed on the carpet."

The dark gaze studied the makeshift dressing, then shifted to Stuyvesant's clothing, and the man's nostrils flared just a touch-why the hell had he stopped for that drink, Stuyvesant asked himself-before he reached for the telephone on his desk.

The secretary came in carrying a small box. Carstairs lifted his chin at Stuyvesant's hand, and Lakely efficiently stripped away the handkerchief, wiped away the blood, applied the sticky bandages, and gathered the debris, without a word being exchanged.

"Our guest would probably like a coffee," Carstairs said. Stuyvesant might have hugged him, then and there, had he not noticed that, the entire time the secretary was in the office, he didn't look at his employer once. I should feed you to Carstairs.

Not a huggable kind of a guy, Aldous Carstairs.

When the door was shut again, Carstairs held out his hand, starting anew. Stuyvesant took it briefly, grateful the man didn't bear down: his whole hand had begun to throb.

"Aldous Carstairs," the man said.

"Harris Stuyvesant. Thanks for seeing me."

"Do sit down, Mr. Stuyvesant. What can I do for you?"

And for the twelfth-thirteenth? No, fourteenth time-Harris Stuyvesant launched into his tale of woe, which repetition had long since stripped of anything resembling urgency, or even interest: terrorist bombs, Communist plots, ho hum.

He began, as he had thirteen times already, by laying his identification on the man's desk, along with the brief letter from Hoover, which said little more than Harris Stuyvesant was an active agent of the United States Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, and any assistance would be appreciated. The letter was showing signs of wear.

Carstairs directed his unrevealing regard on the lines of typescript and the signature, then back to Stuyvesant, who gathered away his possessions and began his spiel.

"Like it says, I'm an agent with the Bureau of Investigation. I've come over here, unofficial-like, because we're looking into some possible links between a series of bombs in our country and one of your citizens."

The coffee came then. Both men waited for it to be laid out and the secretary to leave.

"There are, hmm, official channels," Carstairs noted.

"Sure, and sometimes they're fine, but sometimes they're not." Stuyvesant listened to his own voice, and wondered why he was sounding like some small town hick-He'd very nearly said "ain't." Act like a Bureau agent, he ordered himself, not some bloody brawler marching into this fellow's nice office at three in the afternoon stinking of booze. He took the envelope from his pocket, seeing for the first time the scuff of someone's shoe on its crumpled flap, and removed the contents. One at a time, he unfolded each and laid it in front of the man.

"Last July, there was a fire-bomb at a Communist house in Chicago." He gave Carstairs a minute to look over the outline concerning the fire, then topped it with a newspaper clipping. "In November, a Pennsylvania judge in charge of a sensitive Union case nearly got himself burned to a crisp when his car went up in flames." Another piece of paper: "And in January, five men in a New York hotel room narrowly missed getting blown to pieces. The newspapers haven't put the three together yet, but it's only a matter of time."

He sat back and let the man look at the pages. Three explosions, one gelignite, two incendiaries, all packaged in unexpected but carefully thought out containers. The target of the first one still didn't make much sense, unless there was some rivalry-personal or political-that the Bureau hadn't picked up on, but one confusing motive was the least of his problems.

When he'd reached the end of the pages, Carstairs lifted those dark holes back onto Stuyvesant.

Editorial Reviews

This suspense novel unfolds slowly, but King is so adept at telling a story that the pace never lags. …. an entertaining mix of ambition, intrigue, social unrest and unfettered idealism.”—Arizona Republic

“Cinematic…richly, even lushly, imagined.” –Booklist, starred review

“Intelligent and nuanced . . . Indelible characters . . . a plot as tight as a drum. What more could you want?” –Seattle Times

Set shortly before Britain's disastrous General Strike of 1926, this stand-alone thriller from bestseller King (Keeping Watch) offers impeccable scholarship and the author's usual intelligent prose, but a surfeit of period detail and some weighty themes-the gulf between rich and poor, the insidious nature of both terrorism and the efforts to curb it-overpower the thin plot and stock characters. When Harris Stuyvesant, an investigator for the U.S. Justice Department, arrives in London to look for the mastermind behind a series of terrorist bombings on American soil, he tells Aldous Carstairs, a sinister government official, that his prime suspect is Labour Party leader Richard Bunsen. Carstairs suggests Stuyvesant should talk to Bennett Grey, whose brush with death during WWI has heightened his sense of perception to the point that he's a kind of human lie detector (he's the "touchstone" of the title), and to Lady Laura Hurleigh, Bunsen's lover and a passionate advocate of his brand of socialism. The threat of violence at a secret summit meeting held at the Hurleigh family's country house about preventing the strike provides some mild suspense. (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Publishers Weekly

With this new stand-alone, King once again departs from escapades of her series detectives Mary Russell (The Game) and Kate Martinelli (The Art of Detection) and returns to the exploration of postwar adjustment that was the focus of Keeping Watch.Using the growth of the labor movement during the 1920s as a backdrop, she creates a community of characters whose motives and behaviors stem from their World War I experiences. At the center of the action is Cornwall resident Bennett Grey, a man with an uncanny ability to sense turmoil and deception within other individuals. Acquired after he sustained battle injuries, Grey's gift makes him an invaluable tool for F.B.I. agent Harris Stuyvesant, who is bent on tracking down the suspected British source of sophisticated incendiary devices used in more than one violent union confrontation on American soil, but it causes Grey both physical and mental distress. Realistic psychological drama, strong research, and impeccable writing style make this a tale not to be missed. Highly recommended.Nancy McNicol

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

If you are familiar with Laurie King's work, you will recognize her deft touch in this book -- strong characterization and plot, and a compelling mystery are all hallmarks of hers. Along the way there are fascinating glimpses into British intelligence, WWI, and class issues. She really brings history alive in a way that makes one aware of how union strikes and post traumatic stress affected everyday people.
But as integral to the plot as all of these things are, the central focus is always on individuals, and individual relationships. We learn how the landed gentry live and love, we can experience the wild beauty of the English countryside. And meanwhile we can feel the mystery growing ever tighter, ever closer to what we are sure will be a horrific climax. Little clues are dangled here and there, but it's difficult to tell who is really pulling the strings.
My only quibble was with a certain portion of the ending, which I wasn't sure was entirely believeable. But that may just be a personal preference. It was still a satisfying book, and anyone who loves England, and Cornwall in particular, will enjoy the setting immensely. Though King is an American, she captured perfectly exactly what I personally love about England and English people. I would recommend this novel highly.

harstan

More than 1 year ago

By April 1926 although several years have passed since the armistice ended the combat the United States and England are still recovering from the War to End all Wars. Three bombs went off in a relatively short time in the United States causing much damage and killing innocent people. Harris Stuyvesant is determined to catch the bomber, not because he is a Bureau of Investigation agent but because one of the devices turned his favorite brother into a vegetable. He tracks the evidence to up-and-coming charismatic leftist politician, Richard Bunsen.----------------- Trying to get close to the man he plays five degrees starting with meeting Aldous Carstairs who sends him to a former patient of his Bennet Grey whose sister Sara is friendly with Lady Laura Hurleigh who is Richard¿s lover. Bennet was injured in the war and came through with certain abilities. He is a human lie detector and has a sense of what people are thinking and planning. He agrees to go with Harris to a Hurleigh weekend party. Tensions are high because the miner¿s are going on the strike and a general strike is planned to bring the government down. Lady Laura is planning a weekend where the two sides can talk away from the noise of the public and media but there is another agenda being played, one Harris intends to stop.---------- TOUCHSTONE is a thick juicy story that shows England between the two world wars and how the government feels about the unions. Harris is in England to bring vigilante justice to the bomber and ends up falling for Sarah. He comes to care for Bennet and tries to rescue him from Carstairs clutches. Carstairs wants to be the power in the shadows that steers England on a course that seems acceptable on the surface but is deviously deceptive. Laurie R King creates fascinating characters and places them in several subplots so that the reader understands what motivates them.--------- Harriet Klausner

Lizzie-B

More than 1 year ago

The characters are fascinating, and King is a gifted writer. This is one of her best works of historical fiction. Write on, Ms. King!

reannon on LibraryThing

8 months ago

In my opinion, Laurie R. King is One of the Best Authors Ever. Admittedly, my knowledge of contemporary literature is limited, but I'll stand by it anyway.I was aware of King before I ever read her. She had the temerity to use Sherlock Holmes as a character in one of her series, the Mary Russell series. All the Homes pastiches I had read were pretty dreadful, and understood the character not at all. But people kept talking about how good she was, and I did finally read some of her Kate Martinelli series about a woman policeman in San Francisco. They were very good. So eventually, I took the plunge and read the Mary Russell series and loved them, too She did right by Holmes., if you can get around the outrageous premise he would get romantically involved with a woman, and a young one, at that. King makes it work, and she does it by having a respect for Conan Doyle's famous character.But characters in a series have some limitations. They have to survive, first of all. They have to develop as characters, but not in a way that will turn the reader off (although the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay has pushed that envelope until it is almost useless). So King has written some stand-alone novels, and while her series books are excellent, it is in her stand-alones that she puts herself into that rarified atmosphere of author whose works illuminate the human condition in marvelous, and sometimes heartbreaking, ways.In Touchstone, the plot revolves around Harris Stuyvesant, a US FBI agent in 1927. Harris is after radicals, especially one who has set three bombs in the US. The trail leads him to Richard Bunsen, a British labor leader, and Harris goes to England after him. A British agent connects hims with Bennett Grey, a man with the odd talent of usually knowing who is telling the truth. Grey and his sister are good friends of Laura Hurleigh, who is a Duke's daughter and Bunsen's mistress. Grey is able to connect Harris up with the Hurleigh family. A tightly-plotted story ensues, building to a literally shattering conclusion, one that takes the reader apart and puts her back together as a new individual.In Laura Hurleigh , King has created a character that deserves to be rediscovered by new generations of readers much as they now discover King Lear, or Frodo Baggins, or Sherlock Holmes. Bennett Grey is almost as good a character.Recommended reading? No, more like required reading.

karieh on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Although ¿Touchstone¿ got off to a rather confusing start (I wasn¿t sure who I was reading about there for a while¿), after the character of Bennett Grey was introduced, this book kicked into vintage Laurie R. King style and I was hooked.This is a gripping story with characters more fully fleshed out than in your usual mystery/thriller. At times, Grey¿s emotional pain was so strong that it practically leapt off the page. ¿Touchstone¿ has many of the usual elements of a thriller (twists, turns, doubting one character after another, an English country house¿) and yet the reader gets far more than that. Beyond the mystery, there is also the sense that the reader truly is in the minds of Bennett Grey and Harris Stuyvesant. The relationship that develops between these two disparate people is much of what kept me reading, and enjoying, ¿Touchstone¿.

RachelfromSarasota on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Laurie R. King is the mistress of dense characterization and mood. Her unauthorized Holmes books can be read by even the most fanatical of Baker Street Irregulars without the usual jaw grinding that accompanies most such efforts, and her detective series about Kate Martinelli, a contemporary lesbian police officer are equally good. In TOUCHSTONE King has produced yet another cast of richly drawn and interesting characters, from an undercover American government agent to the scion of one of the oldest and noblest families in England. Each character, even those who merely pop onto the page for a scene or two, is richly drawn and individualized, in ways that demonstrate King's mastery of this art. She allows her characters to come to life on every page, without the tiresome need to tell her readers what everything she writes means. This gift has made TOUCHSTONE much more of a character study than a traditional mystery or suspense thriller. If there is any criticism to be leveled at the book at all, it is perhaps that the plot seemed overwhelmed by the tangled threads of each character's life.Fans of the film GOSFORD PARK should enjoy this book, for although it doesn't explore the differences between upstairs and downstairs as thoroughly, it is rife with interesting personalities.

cajela on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Loved it. Laurie King is an absorbing writer, and this is no exception, although I did find it a little slower to get into than some. It's set in 1920s Britain, where American agent Stuyvesant Harris has come to informally investigate some anarchist bombings. His suspect is a politician, whose fiancee is a daughter of an ancient aristocracy. How can Harris even be introduced to these people? It's a complex tale with many twists of both politics and persons, much of it focussed around the titular character, a shell-shocked brain-injured veteran of the trenches, with an uncanny knack for discerning truth.

smik on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Bennett Grey survived being blown up at the end of World War I. In fact he believes he was blown to pieces and somehow miraculously re-assembled. With the experience came the new ability to see into people, to "feel" accurately whether they are telling the truth. When his ability is noticed he becomes a "touchstone" for British intelligence, useful in prisoner interrogation, and in the development of lie detection technology. Upset by the brutality of the interrogations he participates in, he withdraws from the project and becomes a recluse, abandoning the woman he was to marry, and going to live in Cornwall.He emerges to help Harris Stuyvesant, an American agent attached the Bureau of Investigation, who is looking for an archist, a bomber, thought to be British, already responsible for a number of deaths in the USA.Their quest leads them to a houseparty held near Oxford, to the home of the woman whom Grey still loves, so that the American can get close to the man whom he believes is the bomber.The main story is set against the impending General Strike of 1926, a time when many are hoping for the collapse of the British government, and some sort of Revolution. For many of the characters the agenda is one of high political ideals, of a possible role for themselves in a new order. For Harris Stuyvesant though the agenda is personal. It is also a story of manipulation, but it wasn't until the last 20 or so pages that I thought I knew what was going to happen, and the identity of the bomber.TOUCHSTONE came to my attention originally because it was short-listed for Left Coast Crime's THE BRUCE ALEXANDER MEMORIAL HISTORICAL MYSTERY. While I was at LCC I hade the opportunity to attend a couple of panels that Laurie King was on, and also to get Laurie to sign a copy of the book for me.I originally thought, about TOUCHSTONE, "another American writer rather cheekily setting her novel in England", but I have been pleasantly surprised. Like Elizabeth George's, Laurie R. King's writing has an authentic English feel to it. The story reflects an incredible depth of research, and only the occasional American spelling points to the nationality of the author (and the location of the publisher).

hemlokgang on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Touchstone......always finds true gold. Well, this is another really golden story from Laurie R. King. A mystery/suspense novel set in post WWI England. There is a brash American FBI man, a working class/nobility labor struggle full of issues which ring true even today, and to top it off, the Laurie R. King trademark, strong willed, principled, intelligent women. It's a really good read!

joannalongbourne on LibraryThing

8 months ago

Touchstone takes place in the same time period as the Mary Russell books (post World War I) but features an entirely new cast of characters. The central characters include Bennett Grey, a deeply damaged war veteran who seems to have an intuitive understanding of people¿s motivations, Sarah Grey, Bennett¿s sister, Harris Stuyvesant, an American war veteran and federal agent with his own agenda, Lady Laura Hurleigh, an English lady and do-gooder who mixes with radical politics. Here is Bennett Grey¿s description of his special ability to serve as a sort of human lie detector: ¿Dissonance might be a closer description. I came across a fake Rembrandt portrait a while ago; standing in front of it was like being assaulted by the clamor of a dozen mismatched bells, out of tune and very disturbing.¿ There are fabulous descriptions of eccentric British aristocracy in the twenties as well as the radical politics of the day which included mob violence and bombs. The themes of radical politics, poverty and terrorism raise questions above and beyond the standard mystery and resonate deeply with the moral issues of our own times.

elwyne on LibraryThing

8 months ago

I love this book. Normally I hate politics but these are sufficiently removed that I can deal. I love the characters; I even like the romance. The story is just so rich, the main character so damn likable, I would just stay in this world forever. Of course the denouement makes it all worthwhile... but I do wish there had been just a BIT more! Highly recommended for mystery fans, LRK fans, people interested in: England between the wars, unusual abilities, fascinating characters, class conflict... I could go on. Read it!

Joycepa on LibraryThing

11 months ago

Laurie King is one of my favorite authors; her Mary Russell series continues to charm. Set primarily in the post World War I era, the series has given King a solid background in the era. She uses this expertise in Touchstone, a stand-alone thriller set in England in 1926.At that time, there was a great deal of political unrest, much of it labor-related, in both England and the US. This was the time of the Wobblies, Emma Goldberg, and the anarchists. Sacco and Vanzetti had just been unjustly arrested (and would be callously executed) for political crimes they did not commit, thanks to the rising hysteria in the US about political terrorism. Harris Stuyvesant, an agent of the relatively young US Bureau of Investigation (newly headed by J. Edgar Hoover), has been involved in political investigations for some time. In the past year or so, three seemingly unconnected cases of cleverly-placed bombs have absorbed his attention, especially since one of them, and the ensuing riot, was the cause of his younger brother Tim¿s severe brain damage and resulting loss of memory and ability to function. Stuyvesant believes that there is an English connection¿that the bomber came from England. Faced with skeptical superiors, he travels to England on his own to see if he can track down this elusive terrorist. The story takes place over a few weeks in April. The cast of characters is a rich and varied one, from the members of the one of the most blue-blooded families in England to a shadowy sadistic ¿Major¿ in Intelligence to another member of the aristocracy, Bennett Grey, whose war injury has left him with a peculiar and terrifying hypersensitivity to sensations and to people, to the point in which he is a veritable Truth Tester, able to tell instantly whether or not a person is lying.King centers the plot just before the Miner¿s Strike and General Strike in England in 1926. She weaves a great deal of information on labor troubles and political repression in England into the plot, as well as interesting facts about political investigations in the US at that time, too. She also gives a very fine view of the aristocracy¿not all inbred, empty-headed chuckleheads by any means¿and in particular of those upper-class women who dedicated themselves to assisting the poor. I found this particularly interesting, as I had completed, not long before, His Family, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction by Ernest Poole, one of whose major characters is exactly such a woman in the US. King writes in a much easier fashion, but the parallels are there and are striking.This should have been one of King¿s finest books, but except for the last 30 pages¿which are as thrilling and page-turning as any she has written¿the book just didn¿t quite hit it off for me. Maybe my expectations were too high. But I have the feeling it was the characters¿they just didn¿t seem to come off. I could not get under the skin of the protagonist, Stuyvesant, and too many of her English characters seemed mechanical. In particular, Bennett Grey was just plain unbelievable for me.Yet King¿s prose is as good as ever and the matrix of the plot¿the political and labor unrest in England¿is very well done¿not intrusive in any way but a very vital part of the story. There are some polemical speeches, but deliberately so, and King makes us aware of this in her characters. So even that way of imparting information is part of the plot.I think King¿s finest novels are her stand-alones. A Darker Place is my all-time favorite, one that I reread every so often. Touchstone is good, but in my opinion is one of her second-tier books.

dfnojunk on LibraryThing

11 months ago

Laurie King is one of my favorites. She introduces all new characters in this 1920s novel about an American FBI agent who goes on a hunt in England for a terrorist.There are many parallels between 1920s England and present-day US.It was a little long, but I read every word and enjoyed them all. My favorite quote is "Changing political parties is like putting rouge on a corpse.", or something to that effect.

meditatinglibrarian on LibraryThing

11 months ago

Laurie R King continues to be one of my favorite authors. This is not one of her series titles, but an excellent stand-alone historical suspense/thriller. I love King's use of language, and I get "hooked" by her characters almost immediately.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

HerbM

More than 1 year ago

Very well written, too much character development, short on action.

Alagria

More than 1 year ago

I usually love Laurie King's books (except the Mary Russell series). I was disappointed with this one. The plot was predictable, the ending absurd. Frankly I found this book rather boring.

teacupreader

More than 1 year ago

I have read nearly all of Laurie R. King's books and was so disappointed that Touchstone did not live up to her other work. The story and the characters are interesting enough, generally speaking, the problem is editing. The book could easily have been 100 pages shorter and none the worse for wear - in fact, I'm certain I would have enjoyed it far more if it had been. I like a good descriptive narrative style as much as the next person, but does the reader need to know what every leaf and rock at Hurleigh House look like? I'm glad to be done with Touchstone and look forward to the next King volume which I hope will show this volume to have been an aberration.

Olene

More than 1 year ago

Laurie King has shown again that females are capable of anything that can be imagined. The characters were well drawn and sympathetic. The American came across a little too slow at times, did not fit with other things he did. All in all, a good read

readerRR

More than 1 year ago

I would like to see this set of characters again!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Entertaining but well below her best. The story line seems to plod rather than sparkle, and it was hard to really care about her characters. This is the first book by Ms. King about which I could say this, and I believe that I have read them all. Still, it remains mildly entertaining.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A TNT ORIGINAL SERIES“A first-rate tale of crime and punishment
that will keep readers guessing until the final pages.”—Entertainment Weekly “Caleb Carr’s rich period thriller takes us back to the moment in history when the ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—the brilliant hero of The Alienist, now a TNT
original series—returns in a “whopping thriller” (The Washington Post) that showcases Caleb Carr “at his strongest” (USA Today).June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. ...

In the autumn of 1940, Russian émigré journalist I. A. Serebin is recruited in Istanbul
by an agent of the British secret services for a clandestine operation to stop German importation of Romanian oil—a last desperate attempt to block Hitler’s ...

A breathtaking thriller featuring political and amorous intrigues, cold-blooded murder, and financial crises (San Francisco
Chronicle), from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Column of FireIn 1866, tragedy strikes the exclusive Windfield School when a young student ...

Paris, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague, 1937. In the back alleys of nighttime Europe, war is
already under way. André Szara, survivor of the Polish pogroms and the Russian civil wars and a foreign correspondent for Pravda, is co-opted by the ...

From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Whiskey Rebels and A Conspiracy of Paper
comes a stunning new thriller set in the splendor and squalor of eighteenth-century London.The year is 1722. Ruffian for hire and master of disguise Benjamin ...

2003, Colorado: Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for
her mother’s birthday. Thirty years ago, her parents, Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin, believed that they had scattered the pieces of the Montglane Service around ...